


The Power of a Name

by Gozzer



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt, Eye of Agamatto, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Stephen Strange, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-human Stephen Strange, Shapeshifter Stephen Strange, Souls, Stephen Strange's parents, Time Stone, Unreliable Narrator, Wrist watches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gozzer/pseuds/Gozzer
Summary: He knew from a young age that he wasn't like the other children. He would rather watch the sun travel over the sky than play or read. He enjoyed watching the hours tick by on the Grandfather cloak in the hall. He knew he was different.His soul fought the name Stephen Vincent Strange for the first thirty-seven years of his life. It was both his name and wasn't.He was different, very, very different.
Relationships: Ancient One & Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange & Wong
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41





	The Power of a Name

For as long as he could remember his name has been Stephen Vincent Strange. Ever since he was a young child that’s what he’d been called; it was his name after all, wasn’t it. But even as other people called him that he just knew in his soul that they were wrong. That Stephen Vincent Strange was not his name. 

When he was little, barely older than five, he used to hide away in the copse of trees behind the house. There was a river down the hill that his mother warned him and his sister not to get close to, but he never listened. He found joy in playing hide and seek between the trees, running barefoot through the grass, lying back in the shallow water, just watching the time pass around him. Donna always got annoyed when he stopped playing to watch the sun move in the sky. But he couldn’t help it. Something about the movement of the days held his attention in a vice grip. It kept him steady. 

There was something he could never control when he was younger. Something that happened when he lost sight of the time too often during the days. The first it happened he had just turned four, if he remembered correctly. He had been so excited and hadn’t stopped to watch the sun out in the field despite the November cold or even glance at the Grandfather clock in the hallway. It started as a dull throbbing in his bones that he cried about to his mother. That night he had screamed and screamed in pain. His small body was cracking and shifting in a gross movement. And the pain didn’t stop until he was no longer the little dark haired boy crying on the bed. 

In his place was a beast. A coil of iridescent green scales and glowing eyes. A line of shimmering green fur crawled down its back and tipped the end of a tail. Desperate cries of a child and scared animal escaped it. 

But it never got any comfort. The father had turned the mother away and shut the door against the tears. It was left to whimper and whine by itself in the darkness of the night. Only when its glowing eyes watched the sky outside change from a deep purple to a light pink then did it crumpled back into itself to reveal a scared little boy. 

Those incidents were never spoken of in the Strange household. A watch was attached to his wrist after that night and was never taken off unless it stopped working. Donna and Victor never once learned of the beast that lived with them. His father made sure of that. He was kept on a strict schedule to make sure he never lost track of time. The moments spent roaming by the river were cut down, watching the sun move across the sky became a hidden dream, an obsession with watches and time grew and festered. 

He never learned what he was. When he got old enough to keep track of time by himself, he did so. Almost religiously. Even in school he watched the clock and the watch on his wrist. The screaming in his soul when he lost track was enough to bring him back to the flow before the beast broke out. And the beast was settled by the ever flowing and ebbing of time around it. 

His soul used to cry out against him when he was a child. It would push at him and sob when someone called him by his name. The name that it knew wasn’t his. He had tried to tell his parents about it exactly once before deciding to never mention it again. It wasn’t causing him any harm other than the feeling that he was missing something and left forever yearning. 

As he grew older the beast stopped showing up. He had a handle on how to keep himself in check and so it no longer became a problem. His teenage years were marked by how much he knew and how well he excelled in school; he was spectacular at time management. The last run in with the beast was when he was seventeen. A simple lapse in concentration and the ever present tick of a clock missing, and he was lost. But like every other time when he was a child watching the sun rise brought him back to himself. 

When he got accepted into Columbia in New York he was excited. He had wanted to become a doctor since he was eleven and he would settle for nothing less. The screaming of his soul had calmed as he built walls around it. It would never bother him again. With a watch on his wrist and his eyes forever stuck to the sky, he thrust himself into the timeless profession. 

Donna’s death almost dropped him out of school. But he knew that she would have wanted him to carry on and save other lives. Her funeral was the last time his soul broke from the bonds to cry with him. It had stopped yearning for others to listen, but it still reached for the hope that someday he might find his name. He had long since accepted himself as Stephen Vincent Strange though. 

The title of Doctor brought no reprieve to his soul. That wasn’t any more his name than the one on his birth certificate. Yet he was proud. He had earned that and worked tirelessly for it. His soul didn’t agree, and deep down he knew it was right. Nothing would be complete without the knowledge of who he was or even the hint of his name. 

With his profession he lost track of time more often than he could afford. His watch obsession grew as he collected them. While in surgery he couldn’t have one on but he made sure there was something that told the time around him. The hours would tick by and he wouldn’t notice. But never once did the beast try to make an appearance. He was truly free of it after years of being chained to it; or at least he had thought so. 

His crash was devastating. Everything he worked so hard for was gone. Even the walls around his soul were crumbling, leaving him defenseless. It cried out to him. He cried with it only once. After his money was spent and he was stranded in the back allies of Nepal. On the doorstep of his last hope, the tears slipped from his eyes to join the desperation of his soul's cries. 

Kamar-Taj was like a breath of fresh air after drowning for years. He hadn’t realized how much his soul had been crying for the moments of watching the sun in the sky. Being a doctor kept him busy at all hours and he had forgotten about the pastime. Everything about this place was freeing. The learning to let go of control was the hardest thing he had to learn. Control had been his entire life since he was four years old. It shackled him to his father’s mold and his mother’s fear and his own security of time.

But he was free from all of that. He learned magic faster than his teachers were teaching him. For some reason he and his soul thrived here. It wasn’t the magic though. It was the time. His schedule was his own, his patterns were his - he watched the sun crawl across the sky everyday and never needed a watch. The scream of his soul was settled as he pushed and learned all that he could. 

The second he picked up the Eye of Agamotto he just knew. Something just clicked in both soul and body when his fingers brushed the metal seal. He felt whole for once in his life with the Eye sitting against his chest. The crying of his soul peaked then relaxed into a hum. This was part of him, this was what he had been missing, what he had been searching for all his life.

He wasn’t ready. The second being stretched out into a thousand didn’t feel like enough. Her hand in his and the gentle words that had soothed him in his need weren’t going to be with him for much longer. She was dying. 

“Don’t lose your way, Stephen.” Her eyes turned from the snow to meet his eyes. The use of the name made his soul ache for the first time in months. It was almost like she could see the pain when she squeezed his hand softly and gave him a sad smile. “You’ll find your name and your soul will finally rest. Do not cage yourself.”

What he wouldn’t give to have her back. His mentor was gone. The one that had just known that he was more than simply Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange. 

The Eye on his chest and the bands of familiar green on his wrists were a comfort. They kept him strong as he confronted Dormammu over and over and over again; kept him steady in this timeless dimension. Time had always kept him sane and functioning.

It was with Wong that he truly discovered what he was. The Eye was put back in its place even as his soul reached out for it and Wong mentioned  _ Infinity _ . It was like something had flipped after the contentment he had felt with the Eye. His body cracked and broke and shattered. A green glow came from the seal now above him. The same glow that the beast’s coils and fur embodied. It curled within the small space and around the pillar holding the Eye as they both glowed in the same iridescent green. 

Magic and power radiated in the room. A never ending loop that fed off one another. The beast towered over Wong - who just stood back and watched without fear as it peered down at him. Pupiless glowing eyes stared, brimming with fear and anguish and begging to be helped. A low rumbling came from the beast; a questioning noise that transferred from human to beast. Its head dipped lower as long, curling, horns brushed against an unseen ceiling. Short legs held part of its body up, but short as they might be they still over took the pillar in height. A long tail whipped around to curl over two three-clawed feet as if to hide them from view. 

“It appears there is still much we both have yet to learn.” Was all Wong had to say. The beast tilted its head to the side like a confused dog, horns brushing against a door with a low noise. Instead of saying any more or even trying to figure out what happened Wong just pushed open the door to the New York Sanctum. He stepped back as the beast shot for the opening. A long body slithered over the stones of the room as claws clicked until it turned into quieting hissing over tile and wood. Once through the doorway and into the foyer the beast came to a stop. 

Sunlight peeked through the windows and made ever-shifting green scales sparkle. A tail slid across the floor then an entire body as the beast curled up. It set its head on the floor and settled glowing eyes on the light streaming through the windows.

When he was back and the beast simmering under his skin once more, he turned to Wong for answers. Who provided none. But together they found what he was looking for. What he had been looking for just as long as his soul has been protesting his name. They came across stories and legends about a beast that would be forever scouring the Earth for its other half. That could never rest until it had been found. First hand accounts put into words on weathered scrolls about a creature that would howl into the night with such heartbreaking cries that those that heard would have tears in their eyes. Religious pieces speaking of a soul that was so old and broken that not even a mortal body could hold it. Agamotto’s journal that held entries on a shard broken off from the glowing green gem that had come into his possession. Of that shard being lost to the Earth and of the agony the Time Stone will forever be in until the pieces are reunited. 

He was more than a beast haunting the Earth with its helpless cries, he was a creature of the universe searching for home. 

Home that he had found. 

While he wasn’t quite whole he was content. He wouldn’t ever be part of the Time Stone again - not without his name - but they were together again. His soul had stopped the screaming but a dull ache still rested there. It didn’t hinder him in his work. In fact, he worked so much more efficiently now. His duties as the Master of the New York Sanctum were limitless but they were never too much to handle. For the first time in his life he felt complete.

Then Thanos came. The Time Stone shouted out its despair to him that his soul echoed back. He didn’t want to do it, he really really didn’t. But he had searched and searched so many futures, and only found one. Where he gave up himself to the Titan and made sure that Tony Stark survived.

The second the Stone slipped from his fingers his soul shouted and screamed and cried and fought against the action. He blocked away the pain for the sake of the universe; the sake of his universe. A green glow still coated his hands even after the Time Stone was long gone. They were one. 

He was grateful when he fell into dust. And thankful when he was put back together five years later. The yearning in his soul was back but he pushed it down to finally finish this fight. What he hadn’t seen in this future was the five years in between. He saw only their victory. But his soul knew before he did that something was wrong. It hurt within him like it never had before. Pain burned through his body that he ignored to continue fighting. It only grew worse when the Snap was done and dropped him to his knees. 

The fight was over. He was moving for the gauntlet and his Stone, ducking around those that fought alongside him. Stark held the gauntlet in his hands but something was wrong. He stretched out a trembling hand for the Stones, for his Stone. The green gem lifted from the nano-tech and towards his fingers. And his soul collapsed within him. Words filtered past his ears as he dropped to his knees with the Stone clutched in his hands. It was his but it wasn’t. His was taken from him and lost to the universe without him. He was alone once again. The Stone knew he was upset and tried to help him despite knowing that his soul was not the one it was missing. It cast a gentle, warming, glow over him. That finally brought on the silent tears that he had been fighting. Slipping down his bloody and dirty cheeks to drip onto the Stone that sat cradled in his hands. 

“I’m sorry, Stephen.” Wong’s voice was gentle in a way it never was. As was the hand on his shoulder. The Stone stared up at him with a dimming glow and he ran a finger over where the chip was. Right on the bottom like his. 

“How the hell can he touch that thing?” A voice he didn’t care to know called out in shock. He only swallowed back his sobs and put a stop to his tears. Getting to his feet he opened his hands to allow the Stone to go back to its siblings. It pulsed a sad noise that only he could hear. That he didn’t want to hear but would listen to anyway. It slipped back into the gauntlet with another ping that all six Stones echoed for a moment. 

Then he turned away. The Time Stone was lost to the universe with little hope of coming back for him. He was back to the beast that would forever howl into the sky and bring mortals to tears with his sorrow. The soul searching for its home that it could never find again. A creature of the universe that was no longer connected to the expanse of black above it. 

Within the safety of the Sanctum he allowed himself to break down. Allowed the sobs and cries to slip from him freely. Let out the screams his soul had been trying to voice. His misery echoed throughout the silence of the Sanctum. Then he picked himself up and let the Cloak of Levitation guide him to where his bedroom still sat within the halls. Where his waning control slipped and the beast became caged within the walls of its home.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you want a second chapter to this


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